Translator: AnubisTL
As the last piece of spoils of war tainted with the aura of the Triangular Plane was discarded, a brief silence fell over the battlefield.
The Wizard Army and the two seventh-tier wizards stood rooted to the spot, staring at the mountain of loot piled before them with expressions of bewilderment and shock.
What had once been the spoils of victory had instantly transformed into an ominous heap of trash. This abrupt shift from ecstatic joy to sheer terror was a change so surreal that even the most experienced wizards needed a moment to process it.
Only Dixon truly breathed a sigh of relief. Through his Fate Perception, he confirmed that the dark cloud of misfortune that had been rapidly descending upon the entire army had dissipated. The threads of fate had returned to a stable, and even slightly ascending, positive state.
He immediately used the soul link to communicate his recent findings and deductions to Obolos and Merist, who was far away on the ship plane.
Though they now knew the crisis stemmed from the spoils of war, the exact reason why—and the nature of the invisible force that had been manipulating their minds—remained shrouded in mystery.
In the face of the unknown, the safest course of action was to wait.
Fortunately, the efficiency of high-rank wizards' reinforcements was exceptionally high.
Only a few minutes later, Merist, who had been monitoring the entire situation with her nerves taut, suddenly heard a gentle and calm voice ask from beside her:
"What has happened here? To the extent that the highest emergency signal was activated."
Merist's heart jolted. With her perception as a seventh-tier wizard, she had completely failed to notice when the other party had appeared!
She whipped her head around and saw a middle-aged wizard in a simple gray robe, with an elegant temperament and a gentle face, standing silently in the control room, looking at her with a hint of inquiry.
Upon seeing the newcomer's face, the unbelievable astonishment that erupted in Merist's eyes instantly turned into absolute reverence.
She immediately bowed and reported everything that had happened—from the awakening of the Fungal Lord, to the ship plane's main cannon firing, to Dixon's fate warning and the order for the entire army to discard the spoils of war—with extreme speed and clarity.
The elegant wizard listened quietly, his expression showing little emotion, merely nodding slightly to indicate his understanding.
Then, his figure seemed to merge with the light, vanishing silently from the spot.
The precise instruments within the ship plane, capable of detecting spatial jumps and energy disturbances, showed no reaction at all, as if he had never appeared.
In the next instant, the space above the shattered Giant Spirit Realm rippled slightly, and the elegant wizard materialized out of thin air beside Dixon and Obolos.
"Master Wizard Noren!" Dixon and Obolos were equally stunned to see him. They immediately suppressed their auras and bowed deeply in respect.
The reverence in their voices was far greater than what they would show a peer.
Wizard Noren wore a gentle smile and waved his hand dismissively. "No need for such formalities. I have a general understanding of the situation."
His gaze then turned to the ravaged battlefield below, specifically to the scattered remains of the Fungal Lords.
Instead of remaining in the air, he descended to the ground, knelt down, and extended a slender finger to gently touch a fragment of a Fungal Lord's tissue that was still faintly writhing.
His movements were soft and focused, as if he were listening to these dead things recount secrets unknown to others.
Down in the Wizard Army, Jieming's heart leaped as he heard Dixon address the suddenly appeared wizard.
"Wizard Noren... Master?" A shocking thought flashed through his mind.
To command such deference from two seventh-tier wizards, his level was beyond doubt—he must be an eighth-tier wizard, a being who transcended the seventh tier!
And the name "Noren"...
Could it be that the person before them was the founder of Noren Academy, the legendary eighth-tier great wizard, Noren himself?!
Not just Jieming, but the surrounding wizards couldn't help but let out low gasps of astonishment, their eyes filled with excitement and awe.
After all, the wizards in this expeditionary force were mostly recruited from the junction point, which had been created by the Three Great Factions: Noren Workshop, the Tower of Annihilation, and Chaos Secret.
Therefore, the name Wizard Noren was legendary among the Three Great Factions of the junction point, especially to those from Noren Academy. He was an absolute legend!
Wizard Noren examined the fragment for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully and slowly rose to his feet.
"So that's how it is," he murmured to himself, then turned to the anxious Dixon. His voice was calm. "I've figured out the cause. Fortunately, you reacted quickly and didn't bring these 'spoils of war' back into our civilization's territory. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unthinkable—you truly would have had no escape."
Dixon couldn't wait to press further. "Master Noren, what's going on? Wasn't the Fungal Lord annihilated by the main cannon controlled by Merist?"
Wizard Noren's gaze swept over the many wizards below, their ears practically twitching with anticipation, as well as Merist, who was "watching" through the soul link. Without suspense, he revealed the truth in clear and concise language:
"What you destroyed was merely the Fungal Lord's physical manifestation on the material plane. But its 'true body'—or rather, its 'essence'—wasn't fundamentally affected."
"True body?" Dixon frowned.
"Correct," Wizard Noren nodded. "This Fungal Lord is a rather peculiar creature. It never developed complex intelligence, but precisely because of that, it stumbled upon an extremely rare, even accidentally successful, evolutionary path."
"It has deeply fused its life form with a certain natural law it comprehended, and then embedded this fused 'true body' into the foundational law networks of these three plane clusters."
"While this has cost it the possibility of further advancement, it has achieved an alternative form of immortality through this nearly 'conceptualized' state."
"As long as the 'phenomena' related to the law it fused with still exist within these planes, it can continuously regenerate and persist by relying on that law. Furthermore, it can even expand its own existence by spreading through a method similar to 'informational contamination' into any biological entity or even any plane that has come into contact with this law or related matter."
Wizard Noren pointed to the Fungal Lord's remains on the ground, as well as the ruins of the Giant Spirit Realm and the Mental Realm in the distance: "Based on the intelligence you provided and the traces at the scene, the law this Fungal Lord fused with is likely a fundamental rule similar to 'natural selection, survival of the fittest,' or even more broadly, the 'circulation and evolution of the natural world.'"
"So, if you bring these spoils of war—which are imbued with its 'concept of existence'—back to the Wizard Civilization, you would be actively introducing this 'conceptual pollution' into our homeland."
"Although this level of pollution would be quickly detected and purged by the high-rank wizards within the civilization, as the 'carriers' who introduced it, you would all be judged by the civilization's own defense mechanisms as 'Hostile Actors' for violating the most fundamental Civilization Safety Contract. Consequently... you would be collectively erased."
Upon hearing this, Dixon, Obolos, and Merist—who was listening through the soul link—all broke into a cold sweat.
The Wizard Civilization was indeed generous to its internal members, but it maintained absolute zero tolerance for any action that could potentially jeopardize the overall security of the civilization. Its punishments were so severe they bordered on cruelty.
If they had truly brought back the pollution unknowingly, their status would have instantly shifted from war heroes to mortal enemies. There would be no chance of survival.
"No wonder... all of our fates just plunged into the abyss of negative values..." Dixon muttered, still trembling from the lingering fear.
At the same time, he finally resolved another lingering doubt: "I understand now! No wonder when we first arrived in the Giant Spirit Realm, we noticed the overall fate lines of this plane were low, yet couldn't find a 'Protagonist' gathering all the fortune... Because most of the fortune has already been bound to the conceptualized true body of the Fungal Lord! It is the true and only 'Child of Destiny' of this Triangular Plane Cluster!"
Jieming, huddled among the Wizard Army, also had a sudden epiphany.
He had always felt that the Giant Spirit Realm and the Mental Realm could generate Mortal Dust Qi, indicating a normal social structure—something that seemed completely at odds with a being like the Fungal Lord, which appeared more like a natural ecological entity.
Only now, after hearing Wizard Noren's explanation, did he understand.
The civilizations led by Kog and Hilla could be understood as relatively independent "Parasite Civilizations" living inside the colossal conceptual lifeform known as the "Fungal Lord."
(End of the Chapter)
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